Religion, Anti-Slavery, and Identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and Transatlantic Evangelicalism, C.1820–1914

Religion, anti-slavery, and identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and transatlantic evangelicalism, c. 1820-1914 Holmes, A. R. (2015). Religion, anti-slavery, and identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and transatlantic evangelicalism, c. 1820-1914. Irish Historical Studies, 39(155), 378-398. https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2014.6 Published in: Irish Historical Studies Document Version: Peer reviewed version Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2015. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:28. Sep. 2021 1 Religion, anti-slavery, and identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and transatlantic evangelicalism, c. 1820-1914 Abstract Scholars have devoted much attention to the causes and consequences of Presbyterian emigration from Ulster to the thirteen colonies before 1776. This article moves beyond the eighteenth century to examine the continued religious links between Presbyterians in Ireland and the United States in the nineteenth century. It begins with an examination of the influence of evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic and how this promoted unity in denominational identity, missionary activity to convert Catholics, and revivalist religion during the first half of the century. Though Irish Presbyterians had great affection for their American co-religionists, they were not uncritical and significant tensions did develop over slavery. Irish Presbyterians were committed to the abolition of slavery, both temporal and spiritual. Their understanding of liberty seamlessly incorporated a desire to free Catholics from the spiritual slavery imposed by their church and to end chattel slavery in the United States. American Presbyterians eagerly supported the former, but the Irish commitment to the abolition of slavery in the United States led to tensions between the Presbyterian churches that was to last until the end of the Civil War. The article then examines the religious character of Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots identity in the late nineteenth century, which was articulated in response to the alleged demoralising influence of large-scale Irish immigration during and after the Famine of the 1840s, the so- called Romanisation of Catholicism, and the threat of Home Rule in Ireland. The importance of identity politics should not obscure religious developments, and the article ends with a consideration of the origins and character of fundamentalism, perhaps one of the most important cultural connections between protestants in Northern Ireland and the United States in the twentieth century. Historians have devoted significant attention to the emigration of around 300,000 persons from Ulster to the New World in the eighteenth century.1 Most of these emigrants were Presbyterians who would have a considerable impact upon the religious, cultural, and political life of the thirteen colonies. In 1 For example, Benjamin Bankhurst, Ulster Presbyterians and the Scots Irish diaspora, 1750-1764 (Basingstoke, 2014); H.T. Blethen and C.W. Wood, Jr, (eds), Ulster and North America: transatlantic perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1997); R.J. Dickson, Ulster emigration to colonial America, 1718–1775 (London, 1966); Patrick Griffin, The people with no name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the creation of a British Atlantic world, 1689–1764 (Princeton, 2001); M.A. Jones, ‘The Scotch Irish in British America’ in Bernard Bailyn and P.D. Morgan (eds.), Strangers within the realm: cultural margins of the first British Empire (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991), pp 284-313; K.A. Miller, Arnold Schrier, B.D. Boling, and D.N. Doyle, Irish immigrants in the land of Canaan: letters and memoirs from colonial and revolutionary America, 1675-1815 (Oxford, 2003). 2 religious terms, the ‘father’ of American Presbyterianism was the Revd Francis Makemie from the Laggan area of north-west Ulster who established the first presbytery on American soil in 1706, and Gilbert and William Tennent from County Armagh were amongst the leaders of the Great Awakening.2 In political terms, many Presbyterian emigrants from Ulster were at the forefront of the revolutionary cause, which has been partly explained by their subordinate experience in the Irish confessional state that was dominated by the Church of Ireland and landlords belonging to that communion. Furthermore, most accounts of the relationship between Presbyterians in Ulster and North America end in 1776. For those who articulated a Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots identity at the turn of the twentieth century, the Revolution marked the end of an era in the history of both the United States and Ulster as the high ideals and hard-won prosperity of eighteenth-century protestant settlers were overshadowed by the influx of poverty-stricken Irish Catholics who by the 1830s comprised the majority of emigrants from Ireland. Even for academic authors in the twentieth century, the Revolution marked the point when these protestant settlers ceased to be a clearly defined ethnic group. In a social study of the Scotch-Irish published in 1962, the sociologist James G. Leyburn ended with the Revolution because ‘the Scotch- Irish were no longer a separate national stock but were Americans’.3 The relationship between Scots-Irish and American identities is one that has interested scholars, popular writers, and political interest groups on both sides of the Atlantic. Popular accounts describe the Scotch-Irish in heroic terms as an independent people who were religiously committed but also cantankerous, character traits that enabled them to overcome various trials and to contribute to the greatness of the United States.4 For professional historians, this narrative fails to convey the complexity of historical experience. A collection of essays edited by W.R. Hofstra on the Scots-Irish migration experience to 1830 notes that instead of a static and essentialist image, Scots-Irish identity was ‘highly responsive to varied cultural and political contexts, themselves changing in time’.5 The 2 B.S. Schlenther (ed.), The life and writings of Francis Makemie, father of American Presbyterianism (c.1658–1708) (Lewiston, ME, 1999); T.S. Kidd, The Great Awakening: the roots of evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, 2007), passim; W.R. Ward, The protestant evangelical awakening (Cambridge, 1992), pp 265-73; M.J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the laity: Scots-Irish piety and the Great Awakening (New York, 1988). 3 J. G. Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: a social history (Chapel Hill, NC, 1962), p. vi. 4 For example, Billy Kennedy, The making of America: how the Scots-Irish shaped a nation (Belfast, 2001) and Our most priceless heritage: the lasting legacy of the Scots-Irish in America (Belfast, 2005); K. F. McCarthy, The other Irish: the Scots-Irish rascals who made America (New York, 2011); J. H. Webb, Born fighting: how the Scots-Irish shaped America (New York, 2005). 5 W. R. Hofstra, ‘From the North of Ireland to North America: the Scots-Irish and the migration experience’ in W.R. Hofstra (ed.), Ulster to America: the Scots-Irish migration experience, 1680-1830 (Knoxville, TN, 2012), p. xvi. See also D. N. Doyle, Scots Irish or Scotch Irish’ in J. J. Lee and M. R. Casey (eds), Making the Irish American: history and heritage of the Irish in the United States (New York, 2007), pp 151-70, and M.P. Carroll, ‘How the Irish became protestant in America’ in Religion and American Culture, xvi (2006), pp 25-54. 3 Scotch-Irish were adaptable and flexible, and one of the casualties of this process was Presbyterianism as many settlers, especially in the southern states, gradually joined Baptist and Methodist churches. Even the labels applied to this group have caused significant debate. The scholarly consensus is that the label ‘Scotch-Irish’ became widespread in the nineteenth century, though there is disagreement about the precise timing – some argue it was a direct response to Irish Catholic immigration during and after the Famine while others argue it was used earlier in the century by economically better-off immigrants who opposed Irish radical politics and Jeffersonian democracy.6 This article moves beyond the focus on the eighteenth century to uncover and examine the continued links between Presbyterians in Ireland and the United States in the nineteenth century, a topic that has received little scholarly attention.7 The emphasis is on religious connections, and especially the relationship between Presbyterians associated with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, particularly the Old School General Assembly after 1837. It describes the important role that Irish Presbyterian immigrants in the nineteenth

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